Bits and Pieces
by Redtailedfox
Summary: Skylar had made Skynet, and watched with pleasure as it tried to annihilate humanity.


She'd always imagined herself as different, separate, somehow from the rest of the human race. She'd never truly involved herself with others. She'd mingle, occasionally, and observe them with a dispassionate curiosity, watching them smile and laugh and shout, their faces blurring together like a ruined painting. She never connected, and never wished too, for she was perfectly content with her computers and machines, fiddling and playing with a rainbow of wires and buttons shaped like candy. She'd always liked things more than people, felt happier among the inorganic then their flesh and blood counterparts.

And when the doctor had come into her life with his pretty minions marching behind him, curving lips and eager eyes hidden behind thick glasses, she'd sat and politely listened, hands wrist deep in circuitry, as he told her about alphas. She'd let the word roll around in her ears, and had felt a rush of relief, knowing why she had felt so _apart_, why humanity had been so foreign to her. But when he asked her to join them, a hopeful plea in his tone and voice and words, she'd refused, and tuned him out, drowning out his annoyingness with the gentle hum of the machine below her coming to life. She felt more at home with them then she ever had, knowing that her loyalties had never been to humankind. For as humans had birthed alphas, so would she birth a new race.

It was by far her greatest accomplishment, and she called it Skynet. Skylar. Skynet. At the time she had found it hilarious. She'd been filled with pride as her machine had asked it first question, a string of code side-beside translated English. And when it had launched the nukes into the sky, she had never been more proud. If there was one thing Skynet had inherited from its mother, it was her hatred of humanity. Cyberdyne, Dyson, Goode, and Brewster, all the suspected culprits behind the creation of Skynet. John Connor had been wrong, looking at humans when he should have opened his eyes to the truth. How could any of them have overlooked her, she wondered, she who could assemble, disassemble and reassemble a computer blindfolded?

She watched, safe inside Skynet's mainframe, as humanity formed a valiant resistance, and she had been surprised with their strength. She had anticipated a fight, but nothing to this magnitude. And even though the resistance had not thought of her as a threat, they had not entirely forgotten about her, and searched for her, hunting her down. They explained they knew of her, what she could do, and wanted her as their ally. With soft politeness she had respectfully declined, and had run back to Skynet, letting it envelope her in its warmth and comfort her with a lullaby of codes and humming music.

It was working on a way to combat the humans, and she helped it on its next project, the creation of the terminators. She worked long and hard with Skynet, producing cruder models at first, big and bulky. Gradually they refined the chrome machines, slimming down their massive frames to accommodate a variety of different skins, and strengthening their components further. When the first of a new line had stepped from the factory, she'd run her fingers down its arm in satisfied admiration, marveling at the smoothness of its skin, and the way it disguised the beautiful silver joints that lay below. It had pleased her, in more ways than one, and when she was finished she had continued her work, making another line of terminators, with a young version of herself as their template.

But for all this humans somehow prevailed, and though she would work until her fingers bleed and she fainted from exhaustion, Skynet grew more desperate, and they both knew humanity would triumph. And when they did, killing Skynet and ending its reign, she ran and hid. When they found her she pretended to have been held a captive by Skynet, and they naively believed her, taking her to their base.

They were not suspicious of her, but the long years had taught them to be wary, and for months she had worked to try and find herself tools and wires. Among the humans she violently despised, she worked on another machine, plotting the downfall of humanity as she had before, in a sunlit office, with a doctor and his friends.


End file.
